HP Envy Inspire 7955e review: everything you need

HP Envy Inspire 955e

MSRP $220.00

“The HP Envy Inspire 7955e is as full-featured and high-quality as it is painless to set up.”

Pros

• High-quality photos prints
• Fast document printing
• Scanners with multiple scanning modes
• Easy to set up
• Excellent value

The Cons of Using

• Wasteful tri-color cartridge
• Mobile app lacks some features

If you’re shopping for a printer, you’ve likely come across HP’s Envy Inspire 7955e all-in-one printer in your research. The printer is a great value for the price. It provides high-quality photo prints, quick document printing and flexible scanning.

It’s become a staple of the remote work and small office world, but I wanted to test it out myself to see if it really lived up to the hype, looking through the design details, print performance, special features, and software to find out if it’s a good value at the current price. Spoiler alert: it’s every bit as solid as you may have heard.

You can also Design Your Own

HP’s Envy Inspire has an attractive but functional design with a soft, off-white body and light beige accents. This laptop will look great in any home office environment.

Since it’s an all-in-one printer, it stands taller than a print-only model but doesn’t seem overly large or obtrusive. The dimensions of the printer are 18.1-by-15.2-by-9.2-inches, and its weight is 18 pounds.

It has a 2.7 inch color touchscreen which allows you to perform various tasks without having to use a mobile application or computer. One of the most useful is the copy feature. It only takes one touch to begin a color copy.

HP has been manufacturing printers since long before the internet was invented. This means that even the smallest of details has been perfected. Ink cartridges are easily inserted, and the directions inside the device are clearly marked.

The printer has notes and marks that show how to load the paper, use the flatbed scanner and feeder and how to adjust guides to fit different sizes of paper.

As an example, you can add paper and see icons that remind you which side of the paper should be facing down. That’s important when using photo paper and other specialty paper.

Printing performance

Print quality is excellent when using HP-branded paper. It’s hard to tell in the photo above, but the printed photo matched what I saw onscreen. Details are sharp even on multipurpose papers.

High-brightness paper offers more contrast, with whites that are brighter and blacks that are more accurate. Photo paper can also produce more vibrant colors. However, less expensive sheets will still provide accurate tones and less vibrancy.

Photo papers of sizes 5-by-5, 4 by-6 and 5-by-7 inches can be placed in a tray dedicated to small prints. The main tray can accommodate up to 8.5 by 14-inch legal-sized paper as well as standard letter-sized papers, envelopes and other sizes.

The ink dries quickly and doesn’t spread even with standard paper. I didn’t need to play with settings to get good results, and everything I printed came out looking great on my first try.

Even when printing gray text, the fonts on documents are crisp and legible. No issues with banding or anything else were encountered. The HP Envy Inspire is capable of producing up to 15 black and white pages per second (PPM), which is sufficient for casual or home office usage. Color speed can reach up to 10 pages per minute.

If you don’t plan to print in large quantities or sell your prints, then the quality and speed should be sufficient.

Special Features

The HP Envy Inspire 7950e is not only a printer, but also a scanner and copier. The entire flatbed scan (a bit larger than a standard letter-sized document) takes around 20 seconds at 300 dpi.

App has a scan mode for multiple items that automatically crops several photos and saves them individually. There’s also a document feeder that accepts up to 35 pages. The scanner is slower, but you can step away and save time while it scans several sheets.

HP’s Text-extract Mode, or optical character recognition (OCR), is one of a few problems. OCR makes editing time-consuming because of small errors. You’ll want a third-party OCR app if you anticipate an ongoing need to turn scanned documents into editable text.

The HP Smart mobile app also has a fax feature that’s currently free. HP warns that this is only a test, and there could be charges in the future for faxing. HP will notify you if this is the case.

Software and compatibility

It was easy to install the software and set up this printer. I was able to connect and use my iPhone, iPad Windows PC, Android Phone, Chromebook, MacBook and Chromebook within minutes. It doesn’t get any simpler than this.

I unpacked and plugged in the HP Envy Inspire 7950e. The instructions on the packaging told me to download the app. I had to create or sign into an HP account before the app told me how to connect the printer and install the cartridges.

You can use a USB cable (not included) to connect, but Wi-Fi makes more sense and allows you to place the printer wherever it’s most convenient. It’s a quiet printer but I placed it in my secondary bedroom as I had some extra space.

Most things are easy to do or automatically. When I looked for borderless printing on the iPhone app, I couldn’t find it, but it’s relatively simple to enable on Android or a computer. The edge-to-edge print I wanted was achieved by printing from Windows, macOS or Android.

You can print through the HP Smart mobile app or your operating system’s standard print system. HP guided me easily and quickly through the process of installing a printing service.

Uncertainty about ink levels is a minor complaint. The app shows a bar for black and color ink, which lowers as the ink is used, but doesn’t quantify that with a percentage or estimate of how many pages you can print. HP+ has an Instant Ink subscription which eliminates the worry of running out.

Price is right

HP Envy Inspire printers retail for just $220. That’s a steal for a printer with so many features. HP and third party sellers offer sales to keep the price down. If you aren’t that particular and just want a printer that is cheap but good, we have a comprehensive list of the best cheap printer deals.

With a printer and especially with a color inkjet, it’s important to have enough ink. The included black ink is durable and lasts long. After printing several pages, the indicator barely decreases.

Each color print takes a toll on the starter color cartridge that’s included. I was able to print four 4-by-6 photos and four full-pages of color, all at the highest quality. Then, the warning came up to replace the tricolor cartridge.

If that happens, you may still be able to print, but colors might not match. The green leaves were muted by the cartridge that was partially empty. Still, it’s nice to have the option to print even after the warning.

The HP Envy Inspire is equipped with an Instant Ink subscription for six months. After creating my HP account and adding my billing and shipping details, I received a black cartridge and a three-color one.

The idea is that ink ships before you need it so you don’t run out. Sign up as soon as possible to receive six months’ worth of ink for free.

After the six-month Instant Ink bonus, you’ll be billed according to your estimated usage. You can change your plan if you need more ink or less.

When you need more cartridges, the service will ship them to you. HP is likely to alert you when you need an upgrade in your plan. You can make changes monthly. HP says that ink cartridges can cost up to 50% less when purchased off-plan.

This printer is for you.

The HP Envy Inspire 7950e is an excellent all-in one printer that comes at a reasonable price. Setup is easy and quick, and the printer works with all your devices.

Ink is available in two cartridges: a tricolor and a black. If your color prints average out to use roughly the same amount of cyan, magenta, and yellow, you’ll enjoy the best value. HP makes its printers energy-efficient and eco-friendly and that’s worth consideration.

If you have a preference for certain colors, a printer that has individual ink cartridges will be more effective. I’m more likely to print nature photos that feature greens and blues with pops of reddish tones. As expected, my cyan and yellow ran out quicker than magenta. That’s a little thing, but it can add up over time.

The HP Envy Inspire 7955e is a wonderful printer, and it very well may be exactly what you’re looking for.

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